


Dinner for Seven

by HugeAlienPie



Series: Deweyverse [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Discussion of Abortion, Discussion of Adoption, F/M, Marriage Proposal, POV Melissa McCall, Past Erica Reyes/Stiles Stilinski, Teen Pregnancy, Timestamp, mentioned Allison Argent/Scott McCall - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-23
Updated: 2015-07-23
Packaged: 2018-04-10 19:58:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4405478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HugeAlienPie/pseuds/HugeAlienPie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles and Erica become another teenage statistic. With the love and support of both packs, they may just avoid becoming any others.</p><p>A timestamp in the Deweyverse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dinner for Seven

_**December 10, 2011** _

It's one of those unicorn-rare Saturday nights when Melissa and John's shifts end both at the same time _and_ at an hour that'll get them home in time for dinner. Melissa's riding the excitement of that when they walk into the house and take off their coats, which is why it takes her a minute to notice that things are wrong.

 **1.** Andrés Segovia drifts from the living room speakers. Scott figured out early in life that Segovia's music soothes Melissa, and it was one of the first facts he imparted to Stiles when the McCall and Stilinski households merged. At this point, the music both calms and worries her, because the boys only play it when they have bad news they don't want her to freak out about.

 **2.** The table's set for six. A table for five she's used to. Allison spends more evenings at their table than at her own. But they haven't been six since Stiles and Erica broke up. Is that what tonight is? A meet-the-parents dinner would explain the music, especially if Stiles thinks she and John will disapprove of whoever he's dating. A boy, maybe. Stiles hasn't come out to them as bi, but Melissa and John have overheard conversations and spotted open browser tabs they weren't meant to. It saddens her that Stiles doesn't seem to know that they'll love him and support him no matter who he dates.

 **3.** "Shh! They're home!" Scott hisses from the kitchen, no doubt thinking he's whispering. But he was never good at whispering and has, strangely, gotten worse since the werewolf super-hearing kicked in. A ringing silence follows, and only now does Melissa process that Scott and Stiles _had_ been talking—loudly, maybe arguing, maybe Scott talking Stiles down from a panic attack. A minute later both boys spill out of the kitchen, tumbling over each other like puppies, and . . .

 **4.** Stiles is _dressed for dinner_. Scott's wearing the same jeans and pullover he went to school in, but Stiles has changed into wrinkled khakis at least one growth spurt old, a plain black t-shirt, and only one plaid overshirt—with no holes in it.

"Who's dead?" Melissa blurts before she can think about it.

Stiles, predictably, jumps and flails his arms. "What? No! That's—why would you think that, Mel, c'mon. It's . . . dinner. It's our turn to make dinner, so—"

"Actually," John drawls from the doorway, and, oh good, he's caught up. Which one of them works in crime-solving, again? "It's mine and Scott's."

"Oh, really, is it?" Stiles asks. "Fascinating. I didn't know. Huh. Well, you know, we figured, your first night off together in who knows how long, we should let you rest. Have some alone time. But not _alone-time_ alone-time without warning us first so we can leave the house. Right, Scotty?" Save me, Stiles' eyes beg Scott.

Melissa looks at Scott, too; he's beet red and trying to sneak back into the kitchen. She crosses her arms. "You have anything to add?"

"Uh . . ." Scott looks petrified for a minute (Apex predator, my ass), and then relief floods his face. "Please get the door?"

John scowls. "There's no one at th—"

_Bing-bong!_

John mutters about werewolf hearing and moves toward the door. Melissa follows, mostly out of morbid curiosity.

Erica and Boyd hadn't even cracked the top ten list of people Melissa was expecting.

The werewolves clutch each other's hands tightly. Erica's other hand grips a bouquet of wilting daisies and Boyd's the sweating neck of a bottle of sparkling white grape juice. They're dressed up, too. Melissa has a bad feeling about this.

John, with long years as a cop and Stiles' father, slides his game face on quickly. "Erica. Boyd. Joining us for dinner?"

"Yes, sir," Erica says quietly. She and Stiles didn't date long enough for her to get over her fear of John.

"Is that . . . okay?" Boyd asks.

John steps out of the doorway. "Yeah, of course, sorry. Come on in. Weren't expecting you, that's all." On that last word, he raises his voice _ever_ so slightly. Melissa doesn't know how Scott reacts, but it makes the other werewolves wince as they step into the house.

Stiles careens into the foyer, skidding to a halt inches from his father's back. "Hey, Erica," he says. "Boyd. Come in, come in." It's supposed to sound welcoming, Melissa's sure. It sounds panicked, like he needs to get them away from things outside the house that want to eat them. In this town, that could be true.

Erica thrusts her sad bouquet at Melissa. "These are for you," she says. Melissa takes them with trepidation.

Scott sticks his head out of the kitchen and announces dinner. Stiles and Erica mutter "Thank fucking God" in perfect unison, and Boyd's relief is palpable.

This might be the catastrophe that permanently ruins Andrés Segovia for her.

She hasn't lived through a more awkward 45 minutes since her first wedding reception, when one of Raf's hideous rich great-aunts spoke to her only in broken Berlitz-tape Spanish. Boyd is unfailingly polite to everyone. Erica's polite to Melissa and John, deferential to Scott, and snappish to Stiles, whose replies vacillate between henpecked submission and _sotto voce_ hissing. Melissa's so glad they aren't dating anymore. Another conversation is happening beneath the stilted and uncomfortable spoken one, a profoundly teenage conversation of eyebrow lifts and elbow jabs. She's grateful not to be able to decode it.

After dinner (including dessert, another tick in the "everything about this is wrong" column), Scott and Stiles clear the table while Melissa, John, Erica, and Boyd sit in unwieldy tension, John's futile but determined attempts at conversation cracking like gunshots.

"Okay, so, uh, if everyone wants to come into the living room," Stiles says, appearing in the doorway, "we can, uh . . . be in the living room."

John fixes Stiles with a shrewd look. "And if I _don't_ want to come into the living room?"

Stiles looks back with a mix of disapproval and despair. "Dad," he says, gesturing toward Boyd and Erica, "we have _company_."

And damned if Claudia didn't train her men up right, because that rebuke makes John drop the belligerence and stand, motioning Melissa and their guests into the living room.

Scott's hovering just inside the doorway, but he has his car keys in his hand and is clearly getting ready to leave. He says something to Stiles as they pass each other, too quiet for Melissa to hear, but it calms Stiles. He takes a deep breath, squeezes Scott's shoulder, and gives him a wobbly smile. Scott smiles back and then gestures Boyd over; they have a quiet conversation while everyone else settles.

There are politics at play that Melissa doesn't understand. Boyd and Erica belong to Laura Hale's pack. Laura spent months trying to get Scott into her pack when he was first turned, emphasizing how dangerous life could be for an omega. Scott resisted, and eventually Laura backed off. Melissa wonders if she's realized by now that Scott isn't an omega. Stiles and Allison, with herself and John hovering uncertainly at the edges, may not make a conventional pack, but here they are anyway. Scott's eyes glow gold, but he's an alpha for all practical purposes. Melissa feels the undercurrents here, even if she can't grasp their significance.

When his conversation with Boyd ends, Scott waves. "Thanks for coming, guys. Enjoy your evening; I'll be at Allison's."

John frowns. "You're not staying for . . ." He circles a hand to indicate everyone in the living room. Erica and Boyd press close at one end of the couch and Stiles huddles the other while John and Melissa share the loveseat.

"I think Stiles has this under control."

"I have nothing under control," Stiles mutters under his breath. Scott laughs and slips out of the room, and the front door closes a minute later.

Stiles licks his lips and turns big, beseeching eyes on Erica. She shakes her head so vehemently her hair hits Boyd's face. Stiles sighs and turns back to Melissa and John. "So," he says. "Dad. Mel." He looks around helplessly. "How was dinner?"

Erica yelps, " _No_!" at the same time Boyd says, exasperated, " _Really_ , Stiles?"

Stiles turns to them in clear agitation. "You could help, you know."

"This was the deal," Erica says implacably. "We agreed to be here, but telling them is on you."

Stiles grumbles but swivels back toward Melissa and John. "Okay," he says. "Okay. Dad. Mel. Remember when Erica and I were dating?"

John snorts. "Wasn't that long ago, kid. Senility hasn't set in _just_ yet."

"Yeah, okay." Stiles wipes his palms on the legs of his khakis. "And remember all those big, important talks you gave Scott and me about always using protection?"

The bottom drops out of Melissa's stomach. It wasn't long, her mental list terrible things Scott and Stiles might've been dropping on them today, and this had been high on it.

" _Stiles_ ," John groans, covering his face with his hand.

"And I did!" Stiles rushes to say. "Every time! _But_! Condoms have an eighteen percent failure rate. Did you know that? _I_ did not know that."

"Usually attributable to user error," Melissa says drily, and, really, she doesn't know how she finds a reserve of sass at a time like this.

"I know, okay?" Stiles says, slumping, cradling his head in his hands. "I know I screwed up."

"Hey, no," Erica says, resting a hand on Stiles' forearm, " _we_ screwed up. If this happened when we think it did, I—" She cants a glance at Melissa and John and then looks away, embarrassed, "we were both pretty impatient that night."

 _Impatient_. That could've been the slogan of Stiles and Erica's relationship. Erica newly bitten and riding high on her new health and strength and power, Stiles struggling to survive his burgeoning magic day-to-day. They'd been a powder keg from the beginning, and for the first and only time in her life, Melissa had wished she and John were the kind of parents to forbid their kids from dating until they were 18. Or 40. Erica's a lovely girl, but the two of them together had been like an oil spill dating a match.

"I wanted to go on the pill," Erica offers, "but _apparently_ it doesn't work for me anymore. Same as alcohol and caffeine." She crosses her arms. "Still pissed at Alpha Hale for not mentioning all of this before I took the bite." Melissa winces on Laura's behalf.

"So," John says, "what are our options?" Melissa loves a great many things about her husband, and right now she loves most that he doesn't waste time assigning blame when there's no point to it. Stiles is beating himself up plenty—something they'll need to address later—and _of course_ Erica knows what a huge shake-up her life's about to go through. Berating them for their impulsive actions won't do anyone any good. So. What are their options? That's all that matters to John, and Melissa's grateful for that focus.

Stiles, Erica, and Boyd exchange tight looks before Stiles nods.

"Ter—termination isn't an option," Erica says. Melissa's never heard her stumble over a word before, which gives her a rare glimpse behind Erica's usual dauntless façade. "Something about my accelerated healing, and the b—the fetus's, too, if it's a werewolf."

Melissa's eyebrows go up. " _Is_ it a werewolf?" Strange enough that her life is filled with adult werewolves and magic-users and—what's Parrish ? Oh, right, a phoenix—but she hasn't considered that their _kids_ will be werewolves and magic-users and phoenixes, too. It seems impossible. Lamarckian. Bitten werewolves passing the condition to their kids implies that lycanthropy is a vertically transmitted infection, and she's not sure that makes sense. Why can't the supernatural behave the way she wants it to?

"We don't know." Erica shakes her head. "Maybe it'll be a werewolf, maybe not. Could have magic like Stiles, could not."

"Apparently it's more of a spectrum than an either/or," Boyd says.

"How can you have a _werewolf spectrum_?" John asks skeptically. "Seems like you either are or you aren't."

"Alpha shift versus beta shift," Stiles says. " _And_ , Talia Hale could full-shift into an actual wolf, but of her kids, only Laura can. That seems like a spectrum."

"Can we get back to _this_ baby and what's going to happen when it's born?" John says, frustrated.

"When are you due?" Melissa asks.

"April 10," Erica says.

Melissa does the math and then looks, wide-eyed, between Erica and Stiles. "Were you two—"

"Oh, no," Erica says with a smug grin. "Accelerated gestation. One of the perks of the werewolf package."

"Lucky you," Melissa says wistfully, thinking of the forty _un_ accelerated weeks she lugged Scott around.

Erica turns serious. "I talked with Alpha McCoy."

Stiles and Boyd tense, so that obviously means something to them, but Melissa's drawing a blank, and she can tell John is, too.

"There's a new alpha in Frank-McCoy territory," Stiles explains. "She and her husband have a reputation for . . . accumulating children for the band."

"Huh," John says, which sums it up for Melissa, too. She's familiar with the everyday realities of lycanthropy: the pull of the moon, anchors, wolfsbane, pack structure. But this is werewolf politics—shared territory and banding and co-alphas—which she hasn't paid much mind unless she's really needed to know it. She suddenly feels like she needs to know it.

"She's willing to take the baby," Erica continues. Stiles relaxes at the news, but Boyd, if anything, looks tenser. "A couple families in the band want to expand. But she warned me that it would be _hard_ —harder even than for a human parent. Stronger attachments now, I guess." Her gaze is downcast at the floor, and she fiddles with the hem of her shirt, looking small and dejected.

"What does your alpha say to all of this?" Melissa asks.

Erica and Boyd grimace. "She's . . . weirdly unopinionated," Erica says. "Says it's my body so it has to be my decision."

John looks shrewdly between them. "What _isn't_ she saying?" he asks.

"She never approved of Erica and Stiles being together," Boyd admits. "Says interpack relationships are almost always a bad idea. But now that Erica's pregnant, I think . . ." He looks at Erica and shrugs.

"She's really excited about the idea of a baby," Erica says. She's nominally talking to John and Melissa, but she never takes her eyes off Boyd, and Melissa sees the strength and support they're passing back and forth between each other. Have they really only been dating for a month? "She doesn't want to push me, because I'm young and my life's unsettled, but she wants me to keep it. Raise it as part of the pack."

Melissa thinks about what it would mean for 17-year-old Erica to keep the baby. What it would mean for the Hale pack, for Stiles and Scott and their pack. She's dealt with plenty of teen pregnancies over her decades in nursing, but never one that required such complicated negotiations.

"What do _you_ want, Erica?" John leans forward. Elbows on his legs, hands clasped between his knees, he looks casual, but he's watching Erica with the same intensity he turns on suspects under interrogation.

Erica opens her mouth. She closes it. She starts to turn toward Boyd.

" _No_ ," John says. "Not what you think Boyd or Stiles or Alpha Hale or Melissa and I want for you. What do _you_ want for yourself?"

Erica crumples. She draws her feet up onto the couch and wraps her arms around her knees. She looks small and scared and young, in a way that she didn't even before the bite. Her voice is muffled against her legs, but Melissa hears her clearly when she says, "I want to keep it." She lifts her tear-streaked face. "Of the options I have? I want to keep it and raise it and have it be part of our pack." She looks at Stiles. "Both our packs, if you and Scott are willing."

As if he's been waiting for that cue, Stiles pops up off the couch and drops to one knee. He's holding one of the plastic rings that holds caps on soda bottles (it's orange) and looking like a man about to go before a firing squad.

"Stilinski, what the hell?" Boyd demands, eyebrows drawing down ominously.

"Stiles, what are you _doing_?" Erica hisses, scandalized.

"The right thing." Stiles' face is set in lines of stoic determination. Melissa doesn't know whether to laugh or feel incredibly proud. John is laughing, great, silent guffaws behind the hand he's covering his face with. "Erica Renée Reyes," Stiles says, "will you marry me?"

"What?" Erica and Boyd squawk.

"Are you insane?" Erica continues. "I'm _with Boyd_ now."

"Yeah, but—" Stiles runs a frustrated hand through his hair. "But I—I mean, that's my—" He waves at her general midsection. "I fucked this up, Erica. I have to—"

"No. Stop," Erica commands. When Stiles opens his mouth, she holds up her hand and says, "I mean it, Stiles. Listen to me. My life's not ruined. No, none of us planned this, but I . . . I don't know. I'm kind of excited about being a mom. I mean, I know it's going to suck, being a pregnant junior and a senior with a baby, but our packs will support us, and your parents are great. My parents might even start to care again. We won't have to do this on our own. And we don't have to get married because you feel guilty."

"I don't—I'm not—"

"Stiles, do you _want_ to marry me?"

"Do you want to _be_ married to her?" John adds.

Stiles' shoulders slump. "That's not what—I mean, it doesn't matter if—"

"Stop right there, Stiles," Melissa says. She glares around the room. "What I'm about to say _never_ gets back to Scott, are we clear?" The others nod without hesitation. "The _only_ reason I married Raf was because I got pregnant. Our relationship was failing, and we'd danced around breaking up. Then I found out I was pregnant. Our families are pretty traditional, and tradition says you marry the girl you knock up." Melissa smiles at John. "I'm supposed say I don't regret my decisions, because they brought me to where I am today, but if I could redo one thing in my life, I would say no when Raf proposed. 'For the baby' is a _bad_ reason to get married. Don't repeat my mistake."

Erica pats Stiles' cheek. "You'll always be special to me, Batman," she says. "You were the first person I ever crushed on who crushed back. And you _will_ damned well help me raise this baby. But don't try to marry me over it."

Stiles laughs and nods. Melissa thinks he might be crying. Melissa sure feels like she could.

Boyd leans across Erica and plucks the soda bottle ring out of Stiles' fingers. "What are you doing?" Stiles demands.

Boyd faces Erica on the couch. He's smiling, which Melissa doesn't see a lot. He may also be crying, which she's never seen, not even when his sister disappeared. "Will you marry _me_?" he asks.

"Hey!" Stiles says indignantly. "What the fuck?"

Erica laughs and holds out her hand. "Yeah. Yeah, I will." Boyd beams and slides the ring over her finger.

"Rude," Stiles snarks. "Get your own fake ring."

Erica takes both of Boyd's hands. "You don't mean right now, do you?" she asks.

"Hell, no."

"Okay, good. Because I'd like to have this baby and graduate first."

Boyd nods and gives her a small kiss. "That sounds great." He taps the orange ring. "I'll get you a real one."

She shrugs. "If you want. I'm keeping this one, though."

Stiles slumps against the couch. Erica pats his head. He hauls himself off the floor and stomps to the kitchen to pour the celebratory sparkling juice, muttering under his breath about moment-stealing, _ring_ -stealing werewolf jerks.

Erica curls up against Boyd on the couch. John reaches over and takes Melissa's hand. Perhaps unwisely, the Andrés Segovia playlist restarts. Melissa thinks they'll be all right.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Kudos and comments welcome.


End file.
